topic How to pass strings beginning with a space or containing commas to a macro? in SAS Programming

How to pass strings beginning with a space or containing commas to a macro?

xyxu — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 20:28:25 GMT

I want to run a macro like this

%macro mymacro(str1, str2);
	data want;
		set have;
		if index(mystring, "&str1") > 0 or index(mystring, "&str2") > 0;
	run;
%mend

The problem is that my input strings include cases like " FL", ",C A", ", DE", "G.A."

How can I safely pass these strings into the macro?

Re: How to pass strings beginning with a space or containing commas to a macro?

PeterClemmensen — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 20:36:00 GMT

Use an appropriate macro quoting funciton. See the blog post Passing comma-delimited values into SAS macros and macro functions by @LeonidBatkhan for a thorough discussion.

Re: How to pass strings beginning with a space or containing commas to a macro?

LeonidBatkhan — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 21:02:53 GMT

Here is the link to that post: Passing comma-delimited values into SAS macros and macro functions .

Re: How to pass strings beginning with a space or containing commas to a macro?

Quentin — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 21:21:28 GMT

Probably the easiest way is to include the quote marks in the values you pass. They will then protect the space and the comma. e.g. :

%macro mymacro(str1, str2);
	data want;
		set have;
		if index(mystring, &str1) > 0 or index(mystring, &str2) > 0;
	run;
%mend ;

options mprint ; 
%mymacro(" FL",",C A")

But certainly doing it via macro quoting will work. And @LeonidBatkhan's blog is a great place to start.